Autos: The Car with the Crumpable Nose

For more than a year, Ford Motor Co. engineers have been dropping Thunderbirds and Mercurys nose-first from cranes; they have also run cars into concrete barriers, then watched the crack-ups on stop-action movie screens. As a result of the lessons learned, Ford President Arjay Miller announced in Detroit last week that some 1969 models will have collapsible, impact-absorbing front ends as a safety feature.

Though remaining silent about exact design details, Miller said that the general idea was to construct the front end so that it would, in case of a head-on collision, crumple and be shortened by 24 in. Through an optimum setup of framing, wheels, fenders, hood, engine and other components, Ford Safety Engineer Harold Brilmyer aims to "work out a sequential arrangement so that everything collapses in a prearranged form." This may sound like small comfort, but it could extend the duration of the typical collision from 90 milliseconds to 125 milliseconds, cut impact forces by 20% to 30%, and thus reduce passenger injuries.

Like General Motors' telescoping steering column (TIME, Feb. 18), the collapsible front end is an old idea revived by the safety furor, and other automakers will probably follow suit. Ford's is hardly a crash program—the new noses will go on various models when they are due for major restyling, and the changeover will not be complete until the 1971 models come out. But even Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, the auto industry's toughest critic in Congress, saw the move as a sign of Detroit's growing recognition that "safety entails more than add-on features."